Posts Tagged ‘Please Wait for Assistance’

Remember how it was, back in the day, back when Lucky Supermarket (nee Albertsons) introduced the Self-Checkout Machines and they actually worked as designed? Those days are long gone. See for yourself here on the YouTube, where you can espy otherwise-competent Kurenai the Red Ninja getting pwned by an SCO machine.

Before, a shopper could bypass all this fooferallby merely pressing the “Skip Bagging” button. But nowadays that just ensures you get into, “Please Wait for Assistance” mode, where you have to wait for help.

Of course, technology can help us generally, but It’s In The Way You Use It that makes all the difference. When this SCO system is poorly managed or fighting shoplifting to the nth degree, then it can be frustrating to almost all customers. One supposes that earlier on, the system was tuned towards speedy checkout and now is tuned for shoplifting suppression.

What’s the solution?

Going to the regular, old fashioned queue with actual people to ring you up?

Pressing the “I Brought My Own Bag” button?

Placing the scanned item down on the bagging area ASAP with a quickness?

Only buying one thing and then jamming a banknote (you know, folding money, with a value that exceeds the price of your item) into the machine? (This one works for sure, by not giving the system the chance to think.)